Hogan sued the website in 2012 after it published parts of a video that showed him having sex with the wife of radio shock jock Bubba “The Love Sponge” Clem.
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“I had suspicions, but it is now clear that Hogan’s lawsuit was a calculated attempt to prevent Gawker, or anyone else who might obtain evidence of his racism, from publishing a truth more interesting and more damaging than a revelation about his sex life”, claims Denton.
“I said something frightful and I will live with it forever”, he said, “but that’s not me, that’s not who I am”. I just feel like, if he knew he was being videotaped he would not have spoken about the things he spoke about. If Gawker’s appeal fails and they’re forced to pay out, it’s entirely possible that Gawker could fold – or come under the ownership of Hulk Hogan himself.
During the interview, Hogan said the trial was never about the money for him, but it was more about exposing Gawker.
“I thought it was, but now I’m starting to think that if Gawker is going to continue with this type of behavior, the verdict wasn’t strong enough, because they’re continuing on”, Hogan exclusively tells ET’s Jennifer Peros.
Gawker’s founder, Nick Denton, fired back in a scathing response posted online Monday night. “I was in a really bad spot, and I knew it was wrong and it felt wrong and it was a frightful decision”.
“The enormous size of the verdict is chilling to Gawker Media and other publishers with a tabloid streak, but it is also a flag to higher courts that this case went wildly off the rails”, Denton wrote in a Gawker article about the verdict on Tuesday.
“I exposed them a million times over, and what they do, and then how they, you know, treat people, and how they look at the world”.
Apparently referring to the pauper-ish Daulerio, one of the jurors asked Judge Campbell on Monday if they could impose a penalty of community service-not in a civil trial, the judge answered-evoking the image of the former Gawker editor trudging up and down Florida’s I-4 Corridor, picking up road kill.
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Gawker has indicated that it will appeal against the initial verdict. According to statements, Bubba made to the FBI, Hogan was aware that Clem had wired his bedroom to record his own sexual encounters, and that he would be recording Hogan’s encounter with his wife.
